There ought to be an award for artistic audacity — Goethe believed audacity was integral to talent — and it ought to go to Xiaolu Guo for her new novel, Call Me Ishmaelle. It’s an astonishingly ambitious undertaking that even when it stumbles does so with vivified striving ... She has devised her narrative as Melville devises his, in short, potent chapters, though only a handful of her characters correspond directly to Melville’s ... Accept the invitation to experience Guo’s novel solely through the prism of political piety and you will occlude what is best in it: the masterly scene construction, the galling details of whaler life and whale slaughter, the portrayal of Ishmaelle’s dolorous yearning and inviolate hope, the sinew of its storytelling sensibility, the stabbing finale. You may not get Melville’s aesthetic majesty and visionary power, nor what Camille Paglia referred to as his novel’s 'operatic gigantism,' but you will get a bold new version that sends you back to its numinous source.
A triumph ... There is so much pleasure to be had in rereading old favorites — and part of the joy is meeting beloved characters, who have been updated or somehow arrive in a new form to resist old tropes and types. Guo’s recasting of Ishmaelle is no exception.
Call me disappointed. It is not impossible to adapt or reimagine Moby-Dick ... Even writers not nearly as skilled as Melville could craft valuable works of their own out of this drama, and plenty have. The British-Chinese writer Xiaolu Guo’s new novel, Call Me Ishmaelle, is not one of them ... Imitation here is less flattery than it is embarrassment, though Melville is innocent of all that Guo inflicts on him. Where his paragraphs are Minoan mazes, Guo’s prose is oddly guileless and frequently awkward ... Guo’s few narrative departures from her source material mostly relate to Ishmaelle’s gender masquerade, though even these divergences rarely seem to make much difference ... This is Moby-Dick drained of the sublime concert of language and thought that makes it worth reading, as if Guo had simply pulled the cork on the great bathtub of the ocean. Were it not for a particularly horrific sequence of sexual violence, Call Me Ishmaelle might pass as an attempt to make Melville accessible for young readers. It is not clear who or what else it might be for.
Tightly plotted ... I think I won’t be alone in finding the book disappointing as a response to Moby-Dick. Still, it is surprising and often beautiful, and I came to love Ishmaelle’s odd, thoughtful voice.
Guo has chosen not to imitate Melville’s multi- layered writing, and for the most part Ishmaelle’s voice is down-to-earth, and sometimes oddly flat. She is telling a story, but doing so without the exhilarating, if sometimes baffling, circumlocutions that make Ishmael’s voice so distinctive ... Guo gives renewed forms of life to Melville’s immense novel, but the transformation is not without cost. What emerges from her version of the story is adapted to the expectations of a very different, more prescriptive literary culture ... Guo’s novel doesn’t bear comparison with its celebrated inspiration in every particular, but this is not the point. Ishmaelle has her own story to tell, and a changing audience will want to listen.
Comes off as more of a YA novel than a book aimed at adults ... Presents an alternative for high school students, and for adults, who no longer have the time or attention span to read a classic American novel.
Exciting ... Guo’s narrative style is full of energy and Call Me Ishmaelle deftly incorporates philosophical questions about our relationship with nature and gender-dysphoria into the plot, constantly tugging at the heartstrings.
Thrilling ... Guo’s reinvention of Melville’s text has significant political intent as well as playful artfulness. Necessarily, Melville’s multi-faceted style — from blank verse to excessive nautical terminology — is dispensed with to create a fresh and unadorned work ... A transformative writer.
Thrilling, innovative, and revolutionary ... Balancing sentimentality with adventure, Call Me Ishmaelle speaks to those who long to feel at home in themselves.
